...Chimps and gorillas can be violent and territorial, but their squabbles—which can be fatal at times—happen almost exclusively within their own species. As for lethal conflicts involving two different great ape species (at least those not involving humans), that’s virtually unheard of. Hence the importance of new research published in Scientific Reports, in which scientists document two fatal clashes involving chimps and gorillas at Loango National Park in Gabon.
...Scientists with the Loango Chimpanzee Project have been observing great apes at the park for several years, and they’re learning much about their social relationships, group dynamics, hunting behavior, and communicative abilities. From 2014 to 2018, the team documented nine occasions in which chimpanzees and gorillas hung out together, which they often do in this park and elsewhere in eastern and central Africa. As the scientists write in their study, these encounters “were always peaceful, and occasionally involved co-feeding in fruiting trees.” And as Osnabrück University cognitive scientist Simone Pika notes in a press release, the team’s colleagues from Congo have even witnessed “playful interactions between the two great ape species.”
...So imagine their surprise when, in 2019, the team witnessed not one but two violent encounters, each ending in fatalities. In both cases, chimpanzees formed coalitions, attacked the gorillas, and used their greater numbers to their advantage. Both incidents took place on the outer boundaries of the chimps’ territory, and the main aggressors were adult male chimpanzees. The researchers were able to observe the attacks from about 100 feet away, and they describe them in detail in their new report....